The Fall

Perhaps I am naïve for just assuming this show would be flawless, but I tend to get lost in nostalgia for a band of such magnitude…plus I just wanted it to be good so very badly. When I went to see the Vibrators last summer thinking I’d be consumed in their poppy streety radness I was really disappointed. They were sloppy, boring, old and who cares? We like slathering vehemence and moody atmosphere at our live shows, that’s the point, right?
Oh, but I’d heard that the Fall were hit and miss live, either “ON or OFF” and that people had seen them lately and that they were undoubtably “ON”. Plus, whatever incarnation of them is around, it still puts out great records.

The Fall came out during the opener, a VJ busy mussing up clips of Black Sabbath and Elvis, and their entrance alone was grand. The band got on stage and started to set up in the dark while the visual background screen changed from a huge fat Elvis to a shitty pink and yellow spray paint throw-up that looked both tacky and amazing reading "The Fall". And then Mark E. Smith nonchalantly strolled onto the stage in a sport jacket, the longest shoes I’ve ever seen on a man and trenches in his weird face. Everyone went bats including I. There is no need to explain what a legend the cuss is or why because.

But the shows atmosphere turned out to be a problem. The Maria is a nice place located on the Spree, with around a 4-500 person capacity, and it was the introduction to their 3-night anniversary party.
The crowd at this show was exceptionally bad though. Before the live entertainment started a DJ was playing some unfamiliar yet bitchin' surf, and there was a crowd of what I gather were old-schoolers, mostly dudes, dance-twisting their cares away in front of the speakers at the stage. You see that and think, hey, it’s cool that weird, badly dressed old school Germans are still having a good time at that age when my boring parents are breaking their backs all day and giving anything left to the Television…but then you look a bit closer and you realize that they are absolutely fucking shitcanned, slobbering, crossed-eyed. This could have been the tin-can radio at a local currywurst kiosk blasting Scorpions, and they’d still be air guitaring windmills, squatting to the floor. I think the rock scene in Berlin is hidden very deep in the ground because of all the dudes who jock out at loud, energetic rock n roll shows. Its a pity.

So back to the Fall. This embodiment of the band was tight and together. The guitarist was great, pale and sweaty, even though MES kept turning his amp knobs downwards until they were practically off by the end. The bassist was very new metal, but his playing was on and he and the drummer looked as though they were having a really good time. The foxy keyboardist sang, and played a Korg MS-20 in a pretty little red dress.
An unnamed source told me that he recieved the Fall's Rider request via fax the week before in messily handwritten child scrawl that looked like this:

Fall Rider:

2 Packs of Benson and Hedges

SPEED – ( NOT COCAINE )


And MES remains King Fuck, jaw vibrating, providing enough power to fuel Berlin for a week. Then there are the rumors that the keyboard player is his tiny babe wife, and he just celebrated his 50th birthday.

So, the Fall played, Pacifying Joint, Blindness, Sparta FC (with less enthused backup vocals than the record) I’ve Been Duped and Mr. Pharmacist which I did not expect. When they played What About Us? last, MES walked off the stage casually and forcefully hucking the mic over his shoulder, into the audience, where the crowd took turns shouting back at him “What about us?” while the band played on. A beautifully punctuated and adeptly executed move.
The Fall joined Berlin in a 2 song encore ending the show in White Lightning. Older ladies still kept getting smashed all over the place while they tried to capture digital proof of MES’ Muppet face. I was knocked all over trying to do the same (blurry photos aside) and people continued to behave like they’d never been to a show before, jumping on the stage, dancing so so badly (you think dancing in expression but this simply was not) and knocking people down in a soaked, sweating drunk rage and further dampening the mood. Mark E. Smith ignored the many annoying attempts to flag his attention by never making eye contact, either engaged in the back wall, his band members, or waving his hand dismissively towards the arms overly enthusiastically giving him the double thumbs up over and over and over and over and over again.
The Fall played well despite their lack of enthusiasm, with MES just how I’d expected him; dry, uninterested, festered. But a combination of that and the terribly Alpha crowd left me unsatisfied.